Will Schwalbe's mother, Mary Ann, was diagnosed in late autumn of 2007 with late stage pancreatic cancer--which is almost always fatal, and usually in six months or less. Will, his brother, sister, and father, all made regular visits with Mary Ann to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center throughout the course of her treatments there, for a miraculous twenty-two months. One day, early-on, while they were waiting for the doctor, Will and his mother started discussing what they were reading--a question they had often asked each other over the years. During Mary Ann's battle with cancer she and Will read and discussed many books (many of which I have never heard of, but hope to acquaint myself with someday).
While you know how this book is going to end, in Mary Ann's death, it is about so much more than that. It is about the fight to live, the journey, and the importance of family and friends. One of Mary Ann's classmates at Radcliffe was the author John Updike and one of my favorite quotes in the whole book is when Mary Ann is telling Will about her favorite story from Updike's posthumously published collection, My Father's Tears: And Other Stories:
The list of our deceased classmates on the back of the program grows longer; the class beauties have gone to fat or bony-cronehood; the sports stars and non-athletes alike move about with the aid of pacemakers and plastic knees, retired and taking up space at an age when most of our fathers were considerately dead....But we don't see ourselves that way, as lame and old. We see kindergarten children--the same round fresh faces, the same cup ears and long-lashed eyes. We hear the gleeful shrieking during elementary-school recess and the seductive saxophones and muted trumpets of the locally bred swing bands that serenaded the blue-lit gymnasium during high-school dances. (Schwalbe, 295)This was very poignant for me as my grandfather, who loved to read, passed away right before Christmas. He lived his life right up to the end, and had a child-like joy in living. He did not view himself (most of the time) as a 93-year-old, but as someone with wonder and excitement and curiosity as a child might have. I am fortunate that I have several friends that I can say I have known for more than 30 years (I guess that makes me old, at least in the eyes of my students), and to me, I still often picture them as they were when we were in kindergarten, or sixth grade, or as graduating seniors.
As I was reading The End of Your Life Book Club I kept thinking that I'm going to have to go back through and underline or highlight all of the titles and authors names (and I hate writing in books, so this was going to be a struggle for me) so I would have a list to work on (not that I don't have plenty to read already). However, imagine my delight in finding an alphabetical listing in the back of the book of all the authors and works mentioned throughout the book.
This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I don't typically buy our book club books, but I'm very glad I took the plunge on this one, as I think I will find myself coming back to it again and again in the future.
On to the next adventure!
Happy Reading!!
